Smoking is the direct cause of a multitude of diseases and therefore leads to substantial costs inside as well as outside of the health care system. IHS conducted a study on behalf of the Lower Austrian Regional Public Health Insurance measuring these costs for Austria. The study comes to the conclusion that the total costs of smoking amount to 2.4 billion euros or 0.7 percent of the GDP annually. Read the full press release online. Read Research Report (in German) in the IHS Repository. View presentation slides of the press conference.